1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a printing control device for controlling a printing device, and to a printing device and a printing control method.
2. Related Art
Japanese Laid-Open Patent Application 2004-25551, for example, discloses a printing device comprising a plurality of recording heads (liquid spray means) for spraying ink. With this printing device, a plurality of print heads and a drive controller provided to each of a specific number of (one or more) print heads are installed on a carriage. A plurality of data processors that transfer data to each of the drive controllers are installed in the main body of the printing device. A specific number of print heads, one drive controller, and one data processor are connected to a main controller. This main controller also controls the reciprocal movement of the carriage. This printing device comprises a plurality of circuit sets that each comprises a specific number of print heads, one drive controller, and one data processor, so the processing load on each data processor is lower.
In this case, because a plurality of data processors are connected to a single main controller, the main controller should be synchronized with the processing of the various data processors. Furthermore, if there are many recording heads, the configuration may be such that the main controller itself is divided up into two or more printing control devices, and the numerous recording heads are allocated to and controlled by two or more main controllers. In this case, the timing at which carriage start-up commands are sent at the stage at which the recording heads have completed their recording commencement preparations for the recording medium, and the timing at which conveyance commands are sent for conveying the recording medium upon completion of recording, must be synchronized between the two or more printing control devices. Accordingly, one printing control device is used as the master (the master-side controller) and the other printing control device as the slave (slave-side controller). If the configuration is such that the master side sends a command to a drive control unit (mechanical controller, etc.) for the carriage system and the conveyance system at the stage when a command received from the slave side and a master-side command are both in order, then ink spray processing by the various recording heads controlled by the separate controllers, and conveyance processing of the print medium controlled by the drive control unit can be controlled at the proper timing.
Meanwhile, if an error occurs in the drive control unit, the two or more printing control devices must be synchronized and the command sent again, so the setup must be such that the two or more printing control devices are notified of this error, and the command resent to the drive control unit in synchronization between the two or more printing control devices.